Andrii “Did” (‘Old Man’) Mishchenko, former commander of a reconnaissance platoon and now in lead (along with ‘Sambo’ and ‘Flint’) of the 475th independent assault Battalion “CODE 9.2” as part of the 92nd Special Forces Brigade within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which is among the most effective drone warfare units of the Defense Forces. “Each of our operations inflicts maximum losses on the enemy, with minimum losses for our forces.” This is how Did presents himself on the CODE 9.2 official website. CODE 9.2 unit went through operations to liberate the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, and to defend the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. Currently, the guys are deployed in the Kursk region of Russia and in the Kharkiv region, and have reportedly destroyed over 7,000 targets and caused almost $400 million in damage to the enemy during 2024 alone. And now this effectiveness is being scaled up to all of the Battalion – because the experiment was a success, as Andrii, the founder of an IT company in civilian life, put it. Judging by how judiciously the commander thinks and what priorities he chooses, the year 2025 will be equally successful.
FIBER OPTICS IS GOOD, BUT MANY DIVERSE DRONES ARE BETTER
– Mr. Andrii, the situation with the availability and deployments of first-person-view (FPV) drones was not in Ukraine’s favor last year. Some said that at certain times on the battlefield the ratio was one to five to seven in the Russians’ favor. Because they have learned to rivet them quickly, in great numbers, although without due regard for quality. Has this disparity evened out and to what degree?
– True, this situation used to be seen, perhaps, on a small section of the front sometime in 2022 and 2023. But in general, wherever we fought over the three years, never have I encountered this disparity. The current ratio, I estimate, is one to one, and in some areas it is even higher at three to one in our favor regarding the availability and use of FPV drones. We have enough of them, there is a plenty of them. Sometimes FPV drones just rain on the battlefield, as can be seen in videos on social networks. It takes some 8-10 sorties to film one successful hit with an FPV drone (drones lose contact, fall, are shot down). But there are no problems with this: there is currently a well established supply line of FPV drones, both from the government and from volunteers, and the State Service for Special Communications and Information Security of Ukraine has joined in. There is a comprehensive package of incentives for drone warfare units, introduced by the State Service for Special Communications (SSSC), known as “Bonus+”, which was launched in the summer by the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
Each unit of the Defense Forces that destroys the enemy with the help of UAVs records and documents in this system each of its successful hits. The records include target location coordinates, add a video of the hits, which all are always reported and documented in a due course. The hits are verified, confirmed, and for each target – be it eliminated personnel, destroyed equipment, or infrastructure facilities and suchlike – a certain number of points are awarded. The points accumulate over the course of a month, and at the end, are exchanged for the means to destroy the enemy further. These can include bombers, FPVs, and Mavic drones for reconnaissance.
The result is that, in terms of heavy lift bombers, our unit has completely switched to deliveries under the “Bonus+” program. Twelve drone crews in our heavy lift bomber company destroy so many enemy targets that, due to the points awarded, we fully compensate for monthly consumption and can even accumulate a small reserve. We tap into it for particularly intensive operations, such as offensive operations, for example. We can consume 7-8 bombers per day to take out enemy infantry or keep them at bay from eaching our positions. Or we lend them to friendly units that are just at the beginning of their path to efficiency and do not have the opportunity to fly a lot. They work with our drones, earn their points, and then give back the drones we lend them.
– So the amount of supply is actually contingent on the unit’s effectiveness and efficiency; this is monitored, analyzed…
– Yes it is; the more targets you hit, the more drones you get. The SSSC held a meeting with drone warfare units recently. The talk was about how to improve the “Bonus+” program, and we believe that the SSSC leadership have heard what is important for the front line now.
In 2022, these FPVs were often assembled in basements, and this saved us a lot at the beginning. And now, Ukrainian industries are supplying FPV drones in large quantities.
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– Regarding supplies, it sounds very comforting. But there are various predictions being made about the future of strike drones – they say, the system has exhausted itself, and barely six months will pass before we have to rely primarily on mortars and artillery again. Or are drones in for a major evolution?
– For the time being, FPV drones, light bombers, large and long-range attack UAVs are very effective. Indeed, they cannot fully do the work of artillery or infantry. But if there were no attack UAVs, we might not be defeated, but would have lost a lot of land and soldiers. This is no exaggeration.
UAVs cannot always fly due to weather conditions – wind, rain, fog, snow, frost… there are many conditions under which the use of UAVs may be ineffective or impossible. In that event, the artillery comes into play. It always works and we have repeatedly conducted operations involving the combined use of artillery and UAVs, thus greatly increasing the effectiveness of fire power. First came the suppression of manpower with the help of artillery (to keep the UAVs from being shot down), and then the drones were engaged to wipe out targets. Lots of different tactics are already employed.
Regarding [enemy infantry]… Even if we eliminate them all with FPV drones and bombers, regain 10-15 km of land, what will we get? A dead zone. Whose land is this? No man’s land. If our infantryman does not set foot there very soon, the enemy will return and seize it again. You are supposed to bring infantry there and move on. Drones are not a panacea, but their importance is very great, really.
– Everyone dreams of humans being replaced with robots to the maximum degree possible. Magyar (commander of the renowned Magyar’s Birds drone warfare Brigade) has repeatedly talked of the need for establishing total control over all along the frontline to make it into a guaranteed kill zone over time. We will jam their drones, they will jam ours, and even a mouse will not be able to slip through. But so far, the Russians do not seem to care much that we see them – they are intensively assaulting, and no drones can stop them.
– Creating a guaranteed kill zone is quite possible, and on some sections of the frontline where we fought it was created – a strip of 4-5 kilometers deep, where neither our infantrymen nor the enemy’s could come in, because everything was destroyed. The question is how many kilometers long this kill zone can stretch, and how much forces and capabilities this will take.
When the enemy is assaulting with a large number of personnel (I’m not even talking about armored vehicles – the farther you see them, the faster you will destroy them) – 150-180 soldiers –then there is little control. This is how those [North] Korean assaults began: they simply assault using weather conditions such as fog or precipitation as instruments, thus reducing our capability to deploy drones for reconnaissance and surveillance. They can only be halted by a thoroughly prepared firing position with a machine gun crew who will mow them down. The artillery will kill, then FPV drones will finish them off. That is, it is possible to take out the enemy while still in a kill zone, but the problem is the number of enemy infantry who can assault at one given moment targeting one narrow section of the frontline, and so anyway, it turns out that there must still be people who will stand and halt them.
You also asked a question as to how soon the system will exhaust itself. The point of using these drones will always be there. Even if FPV drones are only 20 percent efficient, it is still worth producing them, flying them and destroying the enemy. Because an FPV drone sells at $400-500 and is produced domestically in Ukraine. More and more Ukrainian manufacturers are working to replace imported components with own produced alternatives. What is a $400 piece of plastic compared to the value of human life?
– But technologies are advancing each and every day?
– Yes, there will be improvements. The war in 2022 differed from what is was in 2023, and at the beginning of 2025, we can already see that the war is evolving further, the enemy’s tactics and frequencies are changing, and continuously at that. Manufacturers of electronic warfare equipment, FPV drones and unmanned aerial vehicles are very closely engaged with us and heed to what the frontline requires. In our practice, we saw a positive experience as well as negative experience.
In 2023, when we chose the heavy lift bomber “Vampire” to be the prime means for destroying the enemy – it only just began to be developed. We selected it from lots of different drones and started working. And we reported to the manufacturer about each mission or test performed: what was not working properly and how to make the bomber a truly effective means of destruction. So in half a year we received a prototype that could fly far away and successfully destroyed its first armored personnel carrier. And in 2024, we destroyed approximately 1,500 hostile vehicles and equipment with Vampire bombers. This experience was a success story.
The manufacturers of another, lighter bomber brought us a trial prototype. We saw in it a huge potential of evolving into a really cool bomber capable of dropping up to 2 kg of ammunition on the heads of Russian orcs. We trialed it both on a proving ground and in real-world combat situations, and provided our feedback. But the manufacturer chose to develop different solutions, to create a swarm [of drones]. The result was that the bomber’s development had never been brough to completion. I don’t even know if it flies or not, but I don’t see a swarm either.
Where manufacturers are responsive to changes, their products are most effective on the frontline. The same is true for manufacturers of jamming equipment. From some of them we never order standard configurations, but request exactly what is needed on a specific section of the frontline. And we get it within a span of two or three days.
– How long do these improved modifications survive at the frontline?
– Every day some enemy measure appears that requires a countermeasure. If the manufacturer does not communicate online with frontline units on a daily basis, it will simply be left behind, and the UAVs or jamming equipment it currently produces will become useless in a month’s time. We are inventing something, and the enemy is also inventing something. But all that means is to impose our terms on the enemy. Not just to adapt to what the enemy dictates to us, but to dictate ourselves. That’s when we will be winning.
– Can you give an example of what you are talking about? What kind of improvements?
– This is about frequency changes in the first place. Changes of FPV drone operating frequencies entail changes in jamming frequencies. Pseudo-random frequency hopping (PPFH) fuze technology is used for rapidly switching the carrier among many frequency channels using a pseudo-random sequence, which makes the jamming difficult by detecting the signal frequency, so this fuze has strong anti-jamming and anti-interception performance. Using fiber optics controlled FPVs is a new story. Countermeasures are currently being worked on, and, I think, it won’t be long before they are there for use.
– Fiber optics – is this technology common enough today?
– Much less than radio controlled FPVs. Fiber optics have limitations both in terms of over-the-horizon capability, in terms of flying range, and in terms of target detection ability. In the fall or winter – condensation, freezing temperatures, the coil freezes, adding to the weight the drone has to carry… There are plenty of aspects, so this is not the weapon that will soon replace radio controlled FPV drones or take a place among the Top Five most commonly used drone types among all UAVs. This is just one of the alternatives that can work effectively under certain scenarios, on certain sections of the frontline and in certain locations. It is better to have all the options available.
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CHANGES AMONG PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGIES
– In what direction should the evolution of drone technologies progress?
– You can fantasize and sketch out the performance capabilities you would like to achieve. I want FPVs to fly far and see very well in fog, rain, snow, frost. I want an FPV bomber controlled via a PRFH link where frequencies are hopping across the widest possible bandwidth so that it is fully immune to jamming. You need to have separate units that are engaged in development, innovation, monitor and set trends in a particular sector.
– Do you have one?
– Not yet, since until recently we were a small company of strike UAVs (a little more than 100 personnel). But that said, we have in our unit 12 Vampire drone operator crews, four FPV operator crews, plus two long-range reconnaissance drone operator crews. Everyone is engaged to the maximum extent possible. We simply prioritize, and our main priority is to eliminate as much enemy equipment and personnel as we can while at the same time sparing as many lives of our infantrymen as we can. Changes are awaiting us ahead. We are already expanding. We have been tasked by the commander-in-chief to create a new unit. This is going to be a separate unit with a robust drone warfare component – a separate assault battalion comprised of assault companies, artillery, tanks and an extensive UAV component to support missions both in the sky and on the ground.
– Has it been reinforced it terms of quality or quantity?
– Both quantitatively and qualitatively. Seventy percent of all the missions will be performed by robots. Missions of all kinds: destruction of the enemy, evacuation of casualties, transportation of heavy and oversized equipment, ammunition deliveries, minelaying. Currently, minelaying, for example, is mostly performed by engineer soldiers, but we can and will assign this job to robots. The same will be with the transportation of ammunition to battlefield positions, the engineering component to strengthening our fortifications and positions. Destroying the enemy is a matter of course, this is what we effectively do from the sky and from the ground. In this new battalion, UAVs will have a major role to play during offensive and defensive operations. We know exactly how to do it: since 2022, we have been fighting as part of an assault battalion. We served as part of a reconnaissance platoon for all of 2022. We assisted in the preparation, planning and conduct of the operation to liberate the Kharkiv region, and later on – the Luhansk region, Donetsk region, Bakhmut. It was only sometime in the middle of 2023 that we almost completely switched to destroying the enemy from the sky. We believe that the future lies precisely with such units in which all fire power elements work in concert and with great effect.
Our commander (call sign Flint) says: an orchestra plays a symphony. One instrument will not play. And the Separate Assault Battalion, which we are forming as part of the 92nd Brigade, will be an orchestra in which the first violin is played by the UAV. And they will work to spare the lives of our infantrymen.
– Did I understand correctly that the role of ground robotic platforms is also growing? Because until now they have not been prioritized due to the lack of cash. Where there is a choice between ground robotic platforms and flying drones, brigades are more inclined to give preference to flying drones…
– Let’s put it this way. Vampire, a heavy bomber, comes at a price of $12,000 in the baseline fit, if I remember correctly. A ground platform, such as Termite, for example, with a baseline equipment fit, sells at approximately the same price. Our unit consumes some 30-35 Vampires every month, destroying more than 300 equipment targets (and we additionally eliminated in excess of six hundred enemy personnel in December). And this is not counting the lives we have spared. In one of the most recent operations, Vampires were safeguarding our infantry positions in encirclement, barring the enemy from approaching them. And at night they cleared the exit, securing the evacuation of 22 or 24 personnel out of the positions. $10,000 for saving human lives is not a price too high to pay, is it?
– I don’t argue, I’m just happy. Until recently, this has been skimped on, unfortunately. There have been lots of designs developed, but they didn’t get due appraisal, this at the time when manufacturers are advertising themselves, trying to get moving.
– I don’t think it’s because this technology area was skimped on, but just because the focus has been on strike UAVs. But ground drones will eventually take their due place, sooner or later. Where there are operators of strike UAVs serving within a brigade, they will be able to work also with ground robotic platforms. Where drone pilots are in shortage, they are primarily engaged to operate FPV drones or bombers to destroy the enemy. But where there is enough personnel, it is sure I will always find the budgets to launch a ground platform to do the evacuation of wounded casualties or remote minelaying, for example.
We have very few personnel. The Russian Federation and North Korea can afford to fight by Soviet standards, with little emphasis placed on the effective use of equipment nor the preservation of Soldier’s lives. And they fight like that, motivating people financially. No matter how many civilian prisoners they recruit, everyone said that they signed a contract to solve their financial problems. We do not have such resources, we spare manpower; and we have to fight with technology, that is, to do everything so that to replace soldiers on the battlefield with robots where and whenever possible.
For example, you send a group of 2-3 soldiers to bring in ammunition or water. First, how much weight will they take? Second – how far will they be able to go where all the terrain is visible and hostile drones are flying everywhere? Alternatively, you spend $ 10,000 on a drone, it fails to reach its destination, you launch another one that will do its job, and those three guys are alive. That’s all.
I do not see the problem with the lack of money in Ukraine for this. I see the problem in the shortage of people who could and would like to fight. They are scary, expecting they will be sent straight to the trenches, and they don’t go. Notwithstanding the fact that we are currently forming our new unit, we have launched a recruitment program. I conduct interviews, explaining how we fight, what our principles are, and people who were afraid see that we can be trusted.
– And what is the future of robots? We understand that the use of robots is limited, at least by the agreements reached at the Global Forum on Artificial Intelligence (held in May 2024 in South Korea), according to which robots cannot be trusted to identify targets, etc.
– So far, we have had nothing of the kind in our hands, apart from FPVs with self-homing capability. I am unaware of how far the development of drone technologies has advanced, but this will happen anyway, we can’t get away from it.
– Does the self-homing capability mean that the drone, if there are no control signals from the remote control, can guide itself to a target following a pre-programmed path?
– Yes, that’s true: even if the signal is lost, the drone will anyway reach its target. We are not yet talking about the drone choosing a target by itself. But AI is already there, and it would be treason not to leverage new technologies. There are lots of bright minds in Ukraine, and they are nearby. Small “shops” in garages and basements that saved us in 2022 are scaling up to become large production facilities. People who quickly respond to changes and our needs work there. And this is where our advantage over the enemy lies in.
– How big is the current shortage of electronic warfare capabilities? To what extent are frontline areas protected? How far are we lagging behind the enemy in this regard? Electronic jamming equipment has been in very short supply for long as the manufacturers did not have enough capacity.
– The need still remains huge as the equipment is put out of commission or destroyed. But there are commercial organizations that produce, do the upgrades and supply it quite quickly. Supplies to the frontline are steadily growing. Every vehicle in my company must be outfitted with an electronic jamming system. Positions of bomber drone pilots must be fitted out with electronic jamming systems, because they are priority targets for attacks with FPV drones at night hours. But the enemy is doing the same. Therefore, when we spot an armored vehicle traveling equipped with an electronic jamming kit, remote minelaying teams come to the rescue. Mines don’t care about being jammed, they will do their job anyway.
But each brigade employs a supply system of its own…
– How do you assess the enemy’s capabilities? Is everything they need in unlimited supply?
– That’s not so, of course. What they need is definitely not in unlimited supply, and our needs, unfortunately, are not in unlimited supply either. Somewhere they work better, somewhere worse, somewhere deploy more UAVs, somewhere less, this depending on where their main forces and capabilities are directed.
EVERYTHING A SOLDIER NEEDS: FROM SOCKS TO INTELLIGENCE
– Could you tell us about your recruitment campaign? How is it organized, who is applying, do you have to filter among the candidates?
– We are supposed to create a large unit within a short time span, which will include subunits and personnel of all specialties: assault infantry, tanks, artillery, etc. The recruitment campaign is being launched on different standard platforms – on Lobby X, Telegram channels, social networks. We need a lot of people to fill out vacancies in more than three dozen different categories. Drone pilots, engineers, armored vehicle drivers… Candidates are filtered by only one single criterion, which is the willingness and promptitude to defeat and destroy the enemy, to be effective. Successful candidates are then appointed to positions that suit their skills, more or less. The new unit is also hiring recruiters, PR experts, and personnel managers.
There is a demand for assault personnel, and there are people who really want to be assault soldiers. It’s just that they don’t advertise themselves before they know where they will end up. There is too much negative information currently circulating on the air. But I would like to highlight that our first principle is “life is the greatest value”, and they trust us.
Because all the commanding officers [in that unit] have firsthand experience of real-world combat. Intelligence always goes first, followed by the infantry. There are no problems with provisions, we use only the most latest equipment and always try to follow modern trends and track new products. That said, our goal is to bring together people knowing that everyone will have to fight, there is no point in hiding. We are different in that we want to build an army of the future, to abandon Soviet approaches to leadership, management, intelligence, performing combat missions, training. Qualitative changes.
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– How is the ‘value of life‘ principle implemented in practice? Thanks to what?
– Thanks to highly meticulous planning of operations. Intelligence is gathered, planning is carried out – operations are planned minute by minute, with due account taken of lighting and weather conditions, of the enemy’s capabilities. Next, people work, motivated to spare as many our soldiers’ lives as possible and to liberate as much our lands as possible. Hence a healthy climate among the team, without this, there is no way to success. Every man should feel he is treated in a decent manner, not as an expendable material. If that’s so, you can’t even imagine the kind of the most challenging tasks people perform and how heroically they fight. A week ago, three pilots of Mavic drones, after dropping ammunition on enemy’s positions, found themselves encircled. And they were fighting for four hours until the rescue arrived and were able to escape safely. And these are just pilots.
In a word, we provide all the conditions for comfortable service. And so all one needs to do is to come and be willing to work.
– What motivates you personally, keeps you going? You have been carrying a huge responsibility for people for years without replacement, without rotation, without rest.
– My greatest desire is to give a beating to that disgusting people and drive them to hell out of our land. A very great desire.
Everyone is tired. Everyone is talking about a truce, waiting for it. But we must understand that it may be, like in 2014, just a break. A truce is needed, but we must have the time to change the system from within during that break in hostilities. We must depart forever from Soviet military approaches and switch to those more relevant to modern reality in terms of management, planning, and provision. That’s why we want the new assault battalion, no matter how ambitious it sounds, to be made a model and to scale this experience up to other units and brigades.
– Will the unit have more autonomy over how it does its work?
– It will be created with an effective structure of management that works for the soldier, so that he is provided with everything he needs — from socks to accurate intelligence. These are the approaches that we already apply to our units now. In 2023, we were tasked to create the first experimental platoon of attack UAVs as part of our battalion. Previously, there were companies in brigades, but not in battalions. The experiment turned out to be successful, and platoons of attack UAVs were formed also within other battalions. Then we were allowed to create a company, and now we have come to the creation of a separate assault battalion. We believe that independent drone warfare battalions will serve as kind of a prototype of a modern army. But without infantry, we will not prevail. You can use robots to lay mines on highways and roads and to eliminate as many Russians as possible whenever they advance, and to finish off with infantry those who will crawl up. But in order to be effective in this war, we must take use of all the modern capabilities available.
We have already planned assault operations with a large involvement of robotic platforms. We identify a specific are and destroy everything that is in front of our infantry within a span of a week or two weeks (sometimes even 3 days). So that they can enter and take up positions. Holding these positions is another issue, given the shortage of personnel. But in general, when planning offensive and defensive operations, 70 percent of the missions will be assigned to robots. This reality is already there.
Interviewed by Tetyana Nehoda, Kyiv
Photo courtesy of interviewee
Source: Andrii ‘Old Man’ Mishchenko, CODE 9.2 Assault Battalion Commander
